Naming

group: Packages can be put into a package group. Pacman is able to select packages by groups on install or uninstall. This meta information does not imply any hard dependencies.

meta package: An empty package which just connects several packages by using dependencies.

Package groups

There are groups for each KDE module. In addition to this there is the kde group which includes the whole KDE distribution.

Using groups makes it easier to install and maintain a set of packages. There is no hard dependency between a group and its packages. That means there is no need to install all packages of a group for example. On the other hand pacman wont install any packages new to a certain group on its own.

Just type

pacman -S kdebase kdeutils ...

to install some groups or

pacman -S kde

to install all of them.

Meta packages

There are meta packages for each KDE module. Each of those replace and provide one of the previous packages that were used before KDE 4.3. This also ensures a smooth update to the new split packages.

In contrast to groups meta packages have a hard dependency to all its KDE modules. So, you cannot remove any sub packages without removing the meta package itself. If there are new modules available the use of meta packages ensures that pacman will install those automatically.

All meta packages are member of the kde-meta group and thus can be easily installed or removed.

You can remove or install meta packages at any time in order to use modular packages or emulate the previous monolithic set of packages.